Hot!

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks about "hot reading."  Specifically:

Well, folks, I don’t know about where you are, but right here, it’s HOT.
So … when you think about “hot reading,” what does that make you think of? Beach reading? Steamy romances? Books that take place in hot climates? Or cold ones?

I used to associate hot summer weather with reading long, fluffy novels with plenty of romance, empire building, and inter-generational conflict -- The Shell Seekers, for example, or Kane and Able. But once I started working, summer was no longer a special time to lollygag by the pool or on the back porch with a cool drink and a hot book.  Summer is just three more months in the office.

I am going to try this year to recreate those enjoyable summer reading experiences. I just got a copy of Valley of the Dolls. Now all I need is a sun hat and a G&T. 

Now and Then

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks:

Do you prefer reading current books? Or older ones? Or outright old ones? (As in, yes, there’s a difference between a book from 10 years ago and, say, Charles Dickens or Plato.)

This is a question made for me.  I seldom read a new book.  If it weren't for occasionally receiving a book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program or some other review copy, I probably would read one new book a year, if that.

There are a couple of reasons for my preference for vintage reads. For one thing, I must have some psychic need to get comfortable with something before I enjoy it.  Books sit on my TBR shelf for years before I am in the mood to read them.  Just like new clothes may hang in my closet until they are out of style before I find an occasion to wear them.  I even knew my husband for almost eight years before I ever thought of dating him.

The second reason is more pragmatic.  I am compulsive about my book lists, trying to read all the Pulitzer fiction winners, the Radcliffe Top 100 books, every book by Anthony Powell, etc.  When you are committed to lists like this, you have to enjoy older books.

Most of my lists feature books from the 20th Century, and my particular favorites are mid-century -- basically WWII to Watergate. But I try to read a handful of 19th Century books every year. I am lackadaisically working on the novels of Dumas and Dickens and have a nice set of Mark Twain that I chip away at.  And I am sometimes inspired by the Daily Telegraph's list of the Best 100 Novels of the 19th Century. 

New or old? What are your preferences?

The Long and Short of It

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks:

Which do you prefer? Short stories? Or full-length novels?

I much prefer novels to short stories. I know the old truism about stories being harder to write than novels, and that is probably true, but that doesn't make them easier to read.

It is usually the pace and rhythm of short stories that puts me off. I prefer the longer, steadier pace of a novel.  Too often, short stories either build to a big payoff that feels manipulated, forced, or just unsatisfactory -- like the story arc was truncated.  Or the story arc is too flat and just peters out in a way that is supposed to signify something important but just leaves me bored.

I'm afraid I had this reaction even to several of Earnest Hemingway's stories (see here) and John Cheevers's (see here), although both are revered for their short stories and I am a fan of their novels.

There are exceptions, of course. Roald Dahl is a master of short stories (see here for one review). I have read almost all of them and some are all-time favorites, such as "Taste" about a wine bet gone wrong and "The Great Automatic Grammatizator" about a machine that writes novels.



And I am just starting with Somerset Maugham's short stories, but they are very, very good.

As a rule, I will read short stories by an author who's novels I enjoy. But I won't start with a collection of short stories by an unknown (to me) author.

 

Useful

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks: "What’s the most useful book you’ve ever read? And, why?"

Remember the old, silly game of adding "in bed" to any fortune cookie fortune? It made the fortune more meaningful. Har. Har.

When I read book questions like this, I have a similar, if more sacred rule: Add "other than the Bible" to any question that asks what is your superlative book in any category. Otherwise, the answers would be repetitive.

Even with that qualifier, my answer is still easy -- The Joy of Cooking. There is no more useful book in my house. There is no other book I turn to several times a week to teach me or remind me how to do something. It was the first cookbook I ever owned and, even though I have a newer edition now, it is still really the only cookbook I really need.



I may tweak the recipes or only use them for the basic structure, but every recipe is in there, from apple pie to pâté de foie gras. And there are many useful illustrations.  Even my 1995 edition includes everyone's favorite, How to Skin a Squirrel:

Influence

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks:

Are your book choices influenced by friends and family? Do their recommendations carry weight for you? Or do you choose your books solely by what you want to read?

My close personal friends, Messrs. Booker, Pulitzer, and Black, influence my book choices more than anyone.

Being a compulsive "list" reader, it is hard for me to change course and move into uncharted literary waters. There are so many books already on my TBR shelf that won some prize or made it onto a "Must Read" list that it is hard to get my attention for anything else.

There are a couple of exceptions. My parents and sister pass on books that they finished that they think I would like and I usually take those. And a couple of my girlfriends give me books that I always read. In fact, I had a dream last night about reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society because my friend gave it to me and I'm seeing her next week.

And I will always read a book written by a friend. That's a hard and fast rule for me. It has been a little strange since I started this blog, because now I usually review the books as well as read them. I promise an honest review, so I have been lucky that I have talented friends who write good books. But the day could come when I will be in an awkward spot. If that happens, I'll skip the review.

Here is a partial list of very good books by friends that I've read recently:

Water the Bamboo by Greg Bell (reviewed here)



A Small Fortune by Audrey Braun (reviewed here)

The Age of Reagan (Vol. II): The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980 - 1989 by Steven Hayward (reviewed here)




Lost in Translation and The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones (reviewedhere and here)



The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide by Sally Pipes (reviewed here)



Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites by Mitchell Stevens (which was really fascinating and engaging and I live with guilt because I forgot to review it but I will one of these days)

Welcome to Dumpsville

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks about not finishing books:

So … you’re halfway through a book and you’re hating it. It’s boring. It’s trite. It’s badly written. But … you’ve invested all this time to reading the first half.

What do you do? Read the second half? Just to finish out the story? Find out what happens?

Or, cut your losses and dump the second half?

That is an easy question for someone with my kind of Teutonic reading habits -- if I start a book, I finish a book. Without using all my fingers, I can count the books I abandoned without finishing:

Anna Karenina

Now, before you jump all over me because this is the greatest book ever written, I'll explain. I left this at the gym when I was only a few chapters into it and it went missing. I was in college and poor, so didn't get a replacement. I now have a couple of copies but to my book shame, still haven't read it.

Tom Jones

See above. Same exact thing. Not that surprising, really, given the number of books I've brought with me to gyms over the years, but you'd think I'd learn my lesson.

A Frolic of His Own

I intentionally abandoned this one because it was making me batty. I really didn't like anything about it, in particular the lack of punctuation and speaker identification that made it impossible to know who was talking. But since then, I became obsessed with book lists and because this won the National Book Award, I will someday give it another go.

India: The Rise of an Asian Giant



I got this from the Internet Review of Books to write a review. Despite the great cover, it turned out to be a very dry book, mostly of election and agricultural production statistics. I was stuck on a cross-country plan trip with it, so got about halfway through. But then I pulled the plug. It was liberating.

Maimonides: and the Biblical Prophets

This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewer book. It is a very good book, I'm sure, on its subject. But it's more of a textbook for rabbinical scholars. I don't qualify.

There are also two audio books I abandoned after about five minutes because I didn't care for the reader's voice. But I can't even remember the names of them.

How about you? Will you dump a book halfway into it?

The Plot Thickens . . .

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks for a preference between plots or stream-of-conscious writing.

That's an easy one. Not since I tackled Ulysses in college have I been too enamored of the stream-of-conscious style. I admire books like The Sound and the Fury (see here) for the masterpieces they are, but I generally prefer a good story, well told.

I don't mean I need a lot of action and adventure (although they have their place), but I like things to happen in the book I read. This is clear from my Top 10 list of favorites -- all are plot-driven novels.

I am interested to read answers of people who prefer stream-of-conscious or am I? maybe they could convince me, if my foot didn't itch or I could go get coffee first, just what is conscious, anyway? if a book could really convince . . .

Get it Right!

This week's Booking Through Thursday asks about grammar:

In honor of National Grammar Day … it IS “March Fourth” after all … do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books?

More importantly, have you read them?

How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?

I put myself in the fussy category when it comes to grammar and punctuation. When I file a legal brief or send a demand letter, I want what I sign to be perfect.  When I edit someone else's legal writing, I am ruthless with the red pen. This fussiness carries over to my blog posts and book reviews.

I recognize the influence that brought me to this point: a high school English teacher who made us diagram sentences; a year as the Editor of my college paper; a very short time trying to write free-lance feature stories for our local paper, with my reporter-husband editing over my shoulder; law review; and three bar exams.  Add on 17 years of legal writing, and you can understand my obsession.

There are a couple of grammar and punctuation books on my shelves, including Strunk and White's The Elements of Style; Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss (reviewed here), and my old copy of The Harvard Blue Book, although I think it is too outdated to be of much use.

Don't even get me started on text messages . . .

Bribery!

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks "How can you encourage a non-reading child to read?" There is a lot more to the question that is very interesting if you are facing this problem in your own home. For my short answer, that is enough.

I don't have kids, so do not have to actually contemplate such a horrible dilemma. A child who doesn't want to read? The idea that that child will turn into a non-reading adult? I shudder.

I think that I always liked to read. I can't remember any pre-reading years, so I cannot even imagine not having a book with me.

But just to make sure, my parents instituted a simple program of child bribery. Starting in first grade, they paid me a dime for every book I read. I'd give them a list at the end of the day, tell them about my favorite bits, and they would pay up.

After a while, tired up paying close to a dollar every day, they upped the stakes. They paid me a quarter for every "classic" I read. This lead me to read many books that are childhood classics -- Heidi, Treasure Island, etc. -- but that were way above my comprehension level.  I powered through them anyway, which was probably good training for college because I was never intimidated by any book I faced. Although I like to think my comprehension has improved.

Favorite Unknown

This week, Booking Through Thursday asks:

Who’s your favorite author that other people are NOT reading? The one you want to evangelize for, the one you would run popularity campaigns for? The author that, so far as you’re concerned, everyone should be reading–but that nobody seems to have heard of. You know, not JK Rowling, not Jane Austen, not Hemingway–everybody’s heard of them. The author that you think should be that famous and can’t understand why they’re not…

Since I tend to enjoy books by Mid-Century authors no one reads anymore (besides J.G. and C.S. at Hotch Pot Cafe, Joy, and a couple of other blogger buddies), I have several I could choose from.  Kingsley Amis springs immediately to mind, or even Helen McInnes. Or how about Frances Parkinson Keyes?

But my first choice is -- and probably always will be unless there is a massive seachange in popular taste -- Anthony Powell.

His Dance to the Music of Time is incredible and provides everything I want in a novel -- evolving characters, complex story, and England between the wars. Although published as 12 separate novels, Dance is usually listed as one "book" on "Must Read" lists like the Modern Library's list of Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century, so I fidge a little and always make it my "desert island" book. 

Powell wrote several other novels, literary criticism, and four volumes of memoirs. I hope to read all his books. And I definitely plan to re-read Dance, likely more than once.

The New Classics

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks what authors are going to last:

Do you think any current author is of the same caliber as Dickens, Austen, Bronte, or any of the classic authors? If so, who, and why do you think so? If not, why not? What books from this era might be read 100 years from now?

This is a graduate-level question. I mean, Dickens, Austen, and Bronte probably did not consider whether anyone would be reading their books 100 years later. And I like to think that all my favorite authors will retain their appeal, as unlikely as that would be. So how can we know?

My stab in the dark list includes:

Saul Bellow
Ian McEwan
John Irving

My thinking is not subject to close scrutiny. It is not based on thorough knowledge because I have not read everything these authors wrote. Perhaps Bellow does not even qualify because his books already have some years on them and may not count as "this era."

But I think that the books by these authors might last because they are character-driven, complex fiction, not tied to a particular period of time. Although the stories may include particular historical events, the books do not depend on those events. They are enjoyable because of the people in them and how those people relate to each other.

For instance, I prefer John Updike to John Irving. But I wonder if his Rabbit books will carry the same charge 100 years from now. They so perfectly capture post-WWII America -- the sexual revolution, the Vietnam home front, all of it. But will readers 100 years from now care about, or be able to appreciate the nuances of, the shifting zeitgeist that so shaped Rabbit Angstrom's life?

On the other hand, books like Irving's World According to Garp or A Prayer for Owen Meany, or Bellow's Herzog or Humbolt's Gift, are great stories that do not require the reader to have first-hand experience. Like with Dickens' books, there are a lot of characters doing a lot of stuff. These books are entertaining, but intricate.

McEwan is more of a flyer, and a couple of his earlier books do not deserve to be read today, let alone 100 years from now. But I included him on the list for a couple of reasons. First, because books like Atonement fit in with the above description. Even though the book is set in a certain time and involves a particular battle, the story does not depend on those events. The story is about the people. Future readers can understand all they need to about the historical events from the book itself -- they do not need independent knowledge.

Second, McEwan's books are particularly clever and give the reader some big ideas to chew on after the plot fades. If idea-based novels are going to survive, McEwan's will be among them.

Enough. I wish I could be around to learn the real answer.

The Bio-Sphere

This week's Booking Through Thursday asks about a preference for biographies or autobiographies.

My answer: both, depending on the subject.

I prefer professional biographies of famous people, including historical figures, politicians, and celebrities. For instance;

Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations, by Craig Nelson (reviewed here)



The Age of Reagan (Vol. II): The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980 - 1989 by Steven F. Hayward (which I am just finishing now)



Paul Newman: A Life by Shawn Levy (reviewed here)



But I prefer autobiographies, or memoirs, of non-famous people. This is a new interest of mine, which I can trace back precisely to when Hubby gave me a copy of Oh! The Glory of it All!* by Sean Wilsey when we lived in San Francisco (Wilsey being the unsung son of San Francisco socialites). Since then, I have enjoyed several "random memoirs" -- as I think of them -- about non-famous people living interesting lives. These include:

7 Wheelchairs: A Life Beyond Polio by Gary Presley (reviewed here)



Forbidden Bread by Erica Johnson Debeljak (reviewed here)



* One of my favorite book titles of all times.

Pants on Fire!

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This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks if we would lie about reading a book:

"Two-thirds of Brits have lied about reading books they haven’t. Have you? Why? What book?"

My answer? Not intentionally, only out of self-delusion. There are books that I am convinced I have read, either because they have been on my book shelf for as long as I can remember, so I think I must have read them at some point, or because the story is so famous and so familiar that I assume I read the book.

Here are two examples of books that I had crossed off my various lists years ago. But something (yeah, a guilty conscious) tickled in the back of my brain until I actually opened them up and started reading -- just to make sure. Lo and behold! I hadn't read either one of these, even though I was convinced I had.

Clarification: After reading J.G.'s comment, I see that this post wasn't terribly clear. When I realized that I had not read these books, I then read them. The reviews came AFTER I read them, I swear.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. On my shelf since high school. I was sure I had read it. Here is my review.



Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I knew all about Miss Havisham in her wedding dress and the spiders in the cake, so I must have read it, right? No. My loss. It is wonderful. Here is my review.

How Sad!

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This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks what is the saddest book you have read recently.

I'll go with Suite Francaises by Irene Némirovsky. The book includes two novellas set in occupied France during WWII. Both are compelling and polished stories, and not terribly sad in and of themselves.



What makes the book so sad is that it does not contain the last three novellas that Némirovsky had planned for the series. Némirovsky was a Russian-born Jew who converted to Catholicism and lived in France, where she was a popular novelist and prominent figure on the Parisian literary arts scene. She had completed only the first two manuscripts before she was captured by the Nazis in 1942 and died in Auschwitz at 39.

Her daughters, who escaped capture, were too traumatized by their mother's death to look at the manuscript she had left behind. Suite Francaises was not published until 60 years after Némirovsky's death.
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Love it!

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This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks what is the most enjoyable -- not just funny -- book read recently.

For me, Debra Ollivier's Entre Nous: A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl was pure enjoyment, for the reasons discussed in my review.

Not only was it fun to read, but it inspired me to create a whole list of books with a French connection. And there is nothing more enjoyable for this obsessive bibliophile than making a new book list.



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Just the Facts, Ma'am

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This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks what is the "most informative" book you have read recently?

The book that springs instantly to mind -- because it is still staring at me from the nightstand -- is India: The Rise of an Asian Giant by Dietmar Rothermund.



This book is informative the way the County Extension Service Five-Year Cumulative Report on Crop Rotation is informative. Mind numbing statistics are corralled into chapters by topic, with the bare minimum of narrative thread. If I want to know which political party gained a majority in a regional election in 1967, or the percentage fluctuation in rice production in the Uttar Pradesh region, I know the book to turn to.

Unfortunately for me, my obsessively Teutonic reading habits will likely cause me to finish this one. I got half way through it because it was the only book I had with me on a long airplane ride. I set it aside. But a nagging little voice in my head -- is that a German accent I hear? -- keeps telling me to just finish it because maybe I'll learn something and at least I can add it to my list of Books Read in 2009.
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Size Matters

This week's Booking Through Thursday questions asks:

What’s the biggest book you’ve read recently?

(Feel free to think “big” as size, or as popularity, or in any other way you care to interpret.)

I have a couple of "big" books I can think of that I read recently:

Big Book: Underworld by Don DeLillo (At 850+ pages, this one is a doorstop; reviewed here.)



Big Deal: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (This book is not only a chunkster, it was hugely popular when I was in high school. I missed it back then, which is too bad, because I don't think it packs the same wallop as an adult.)



Big Ideas: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (Not an easy book, but one I will think about for a long time; reviewed here.)



Big Favorite: Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey (An Oregon classic and new personal best.)



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Fluffy

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This week''s Booking Through Thursday question asks what "fluffy" books we have read recently. Looking at my list of books over on the right column, I see a lot of serious books, and not many books I would characterize as fluffy.

Doctor Sally by P.G. Wodehouse probably counts. It is shorter than other Wodehouse novels I have read. It is funny and clever, but there are far fewer characters than most of them and the plot is pretty linear and simple.



But still a lot of fun to read!

PS: Thanks to J.G. at Hotch Pot Cafe for reminding me that this post is a definite KITTEN opportunity!

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Best Book

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This week, Booking Through Thursday asks another short questions: What is the "best" book you have read recently?

I have two answers. The first is based on an objective standard; the second on a subjective standard.

Objectively, the best book I've read lately is The Fixer by Bernard Malamud. Applying the "reasonable person standard" we lawyers are so fond of -- or, in this case, a "reasonable reader standard" -- Malamud's Pulitzer/National winner is a good book. Everyone should read it, and everyone who reads it will be a better person for it.



Subjectively, the book that I think is the best I've read lately is Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth. Pure enjoyment. It also made me think, but it was pure enjoyment.



I read both of these for my Battle of the Prizes Challenge. My review of The Fixer is here. My review of Goodbye, Columbus is here.

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Seriously!

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This week, Booking Through Thursday asks:

"What’s the most serious book you’ve read recently?
(I figure it’s easier than asking your most serious book ever, because, well, it’s recent!)

I thought this would be slam-dunk easy, since I just last week finished reading Bernard Malamud's The Fixer, the grim tale of a Russian Jew falsely accused of the ritual murder of a Christian boy. Imperial-era prison, anti-Semitism, feudal justice system, and pogroms, not to mention poverty, adultery, child abuse, murder, and general violence -- it doesn't get any more serious. This one was so serious that it won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.

But then I looked over my list of books that I've read in the last few months, and there are some contenders (linked to reviews):

All Quiet on the Western Front (war)
The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care (imminent crisis)
Native America, Discovered and Conquered (ugly history)
The Beggar (existential angst)
Black Boy (American Hunger) (ugly history and existential angst)

And I can't forget:

The Letter from Death

I need to go find my happy place.


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